Metroid Zenith
by Magmoor
Summary: Samus is lucky to still be alive after the events on the BSL. But the other Frigates have come out of hiding, and as foes new and old are unleashed, Samus is the only thing preventing the Zenith Protocol from plunging the galaxy into the turmoil of war.
1. Chapter 1

Samus didn't make it far from the ruins of SR388 and the BSL, now the grave of the X parasite threat. The federation caught her in the end, but they had no option but to believe her words about the dangers faced, especially when shown footage Adam had recorded for her. The video was conclusive evidence that the federation were wrong in their assumptions about the SA-X and the parasites in general.

Still they punished her for her disobeying orders, and confiscated most of her weaponry, leaving her only her standard power beam, Varia suit, and morph ball. The upgrades were placed on a carrier ship bound for the new federation outpost of Creon.

They never arrived.

P.L. Hunter was the captain of the carrier ship. It was heavily armoured and filled with storage crates carrying food, supplies and weaponry. The Plasma, Ice, Wave, Wide and Charge beams, Ice, diffusion and super missiles, Power and morph ball bombs, as well as every other upgrade Samus received on the B.S.L.

Hunter was thrown from his chair as a space pirate charge breached the hull, supposedly impossible to be breached. Zebesian space pirates were all-but unheard of in the galaxy, and attacks were infrequent, if not non-existent. He pulled his freeze gun and rifle from their holsters, stopped the ship, and ran down to face the boarders. As soon as he entered the containment bay he was assaulted from behind, stabbed twice and left for dead. He saw no attacker, only a haze jumping from crate to crate.

They came thick and fast, but few in numbers. Heavy armour brushed off all shots that were fired, and bladed weapons dispatched the crew as efficiently as a poison. They stormed through the containers, seeking a specific one in particular. The door was wrenched off, and the pirates swarmed Samus's weaponry. Anything that would work in their guns was equipped, and anything that wouldn't was thrown into shoulder bags and carted away. The pirates didn't need to worry about any more troops arriving. They were all dead. The pirates departed with what they came for, leaving behind anything else. Other pirate vessels would find the rich supplies and transport them to the last pirate outpost in the galaxy.

Vol Paragon.

Samus was called to the Olympus for an emergency meeting, but not about the loss of her equipment. The second Pirate frigate, Siracius, had been discovered. It was one of the three that escaped the first fall of Zebes, when Samus had destroyed Tourian and the metroids within. Siracius was in the same orbit as the Olympus, exactly matched in speed around the planet that was covered in sprawling headquarters for the federation. However, the orbit of Siracius was deteriorating, and soon it would fall to the planet below. Over ten billion people would be at risk, as the violent, thermonuclear explosion caused by the impact would be enough to trigger a massive tectonic chain reaction, leaving the entire planet vulnerable to ash storms, lava and pyroclastic flows from volcanoes, as well as planet-scale earthquakes.

"We shall vote on what to do. Any suggestions?" Admiral Dane stood in the briefing room, addressing seven top generals and Samus.

"Send me there, I can reboot the engines and move it from orbit, as well as search for survivors. There were life signs from the last reading." Said Samus. It was unlikely and unusual that she should go and attempt to rescue survivors, especially since they were most likely space pirates, but since the B.S.L. incident, she had taken a new outlook on life.

Her idea was swatted down by a new member of the Federation, but had climbed the ranks faster than any other had. He had dyed red hair, wore white armour, even to peaceful discussions, and had an arm cannon, like Samus. He was like a brother she never had, but only in appearance, as he bitterly resented her. His name was Draid Mage, not from birth, but the name he chose.

"Samus. Your plan is as futile as it is foolhardy," he sneered, twisting a stray lock of hair back into his helmet, "as the only survivors likely to be out there are space pirates. I suggest a single missile to end the threat here and now. Since when did you start caring about the life of space pirates, anyway?"

"After the BSL I decided to value all life more."  
>"Let's see if that lasts, Sam."<p>

"I'm seriously considering undoing that decision."

"Samus, Draid, please." Dane's voice was the only thing between peace and a fully-fledged fire fight. "We have two options. All in favour of Draid's raise your hand."

Seven hands went up. Samus' was not among them.

"This is madness. There were three frigates, and Siracius could hold the coordinates to the location of the third."

"Samus, it has been decided. We will arrange for a missile to destroy Siracius in twenty-four hours, earth rotation time. Samus, you are not to intervene, do you understand? I have already arranged for your ship's computer to send you to Elysia."  
>Samus inwardly smiled. Adam would no doubt let her investigate Siracius, and she suspected Dane wanted her to do so as well. Twenty-four hours was a long time.<p>

Adam piloted the sleek, purple ship to the Siracius, unaware that a figure was watching from the Olympus.


	2. Chapter 2

Adam manoeuvred the gunship into the wreckage that made up the hangar bay of the Siracius. The floor was littered with pieces of pirate and gore from whatever did the damage. Samus left her ship and set off to explore. She exited through the only available exit by a series of wall-jumps and ledge grabs. In the next room, ammunition storage, there were even more carcasses, as well as a few pirates still alive. Samus dispatched them to put them out of their misery; none of them had more then half of their body still intact. Samus made her way through the rubble to an elevator leading to the main reactor. If the Orpheon was anything to go by, the largest cause of destruction would be there.

As the elevator descended, Samus couldn't help but notice the huge slash marks down the shaft, the rough areas where metal had been melted and cooled, the broken claw wedged in the metal. She bent down to examine it, and the lift stopped. A quick blast of scanning revealed she was still a thousand metres from the floor, so she examined all around. There was no obvious cause of the lift stopping, until she examined the mechanism that lowered the elevator. It was in tatters. Something big had ripped it in pieces, and Samus was amazed it had worked up to now.

She was ripped from her chain of thought by a gigantic presence crashing into her from above. She was immediately pulled into déjà vu from Norion, when Ridley had dragged her down a generator shaft. She stared at her attacker, to see the same person.

Ridley.

'_No. not Ridley. Not the same one.'_

This version's mouth was too wide, with double protrusions below the eyes. The tail was forked and didn't seem to work properly. He was missing a right eye and arm, and his skin was blotched with blue and red, and his left hand was missing a claw. This Ridley was mutated almost beyond recognition. Samus realised the lift had been destroyed from impact, and a helpful readout from her visor told her she was only 200 metres from the floor. She tried to grapple a piece of rubble, only to discover her grapple beam had been confiscated. As they fell, Ridley inflated his wings, only to discover his right one was smaller than his left, which was covered in holes and lumps. Samus jumped as high as possible, using her foe as a springboard to get higher, and managed to grab a piece of metal. Ridley hit the shaft floor first, and Samus landed on top of him, her metal serving to soften some of the impact, but her ankle still twisted upon impact. She rolled off him in morph ball and unleashed a series of power beam shots into his eye. She was forced to drop into morph ball again to dodge a tail swipe from him, and as she rolled, she tried to deploy a power bomb, but the federation had confiscated that too. She cursed them, and then continued to shoot at Ridley, but was grabbed, bitten and thrown. The teeth sank into the metal of her fusion suit, and the throw dislocated her shoulder. Swearing to herself, she carried on firing. Ridley trotted over to her, his right leg giving him pain, and tried another bite attack, but Samus used the spikes adorning her forearms to cut his cheek, giving him a lopsided smile scar, that made him recoil in pain. Samus jumped onto his back, charged a beam, and aimed it at the base of his head, a trick she learned aboard the bottle ship and dubbed 'overblast.' Ridley's tail wrapped around her neck and threw her clear, but she wall-jumped back, ignoring the stab of pain from her ankle. She carried on shooting, and then Ridley disappeared down a corridor she had only just noticed. She was in no state to give chase, so she tried to see another way out of the reactor core. The only other one was the way she came in, a thousand metres above her head. With a cry of pain, she popped her shoulder back into its socket. She hobbled down the tunnel Ridley had used to escape. She scanned all around, looking for signs of her archenemy. She saw scrape marks from a wound to his leg inflicted by a piece of elevator that veered off left at a T-junction. She went right, at that moment definitely agreeing with Mage's suggestion.

She found her way out of the reactor core, and on her way to her ship she saw a door that had been blocked earlier, open. Knowing the only life-from on board was now Ridley, she went through the door. It was only just big enough for her, so she was fairly confident Ridley was not inside. She found a bank of computers, and downloaded all the files into her suit. After a lot of pirate logs, she finally came across a goldmine; coordinates leading to a place her visor described as empty space, but were labelled as the current position of the Frigate Vol Paragon.

She left the small room and made her way back to the graveyard that was the hangar bay. She was about to get back into her ship when Ridley dropped from above, but this time she expected it, and barely dodged to the side, charging her beam and blasting Ridley's face.

On the other side of the planet, Dane was in council with Mage.

"Admiral." Droned Draid "The frigate is losing orbit faster than we thought. We have less than an hour before it crashes, and it could easily crash into the centre of one of the cities. We have to act now. A single, well-placed missile could rip it into pieces that would burn up. We need to hit the reactor core straight-on to trigger the explosion. Everything would be almost vaporised."

"I need at least half an hour to arm the defence systems."

"I've taken the liberty of doing it already."

Dane had no choice but to launch the missile. He knew full-well Samus was onboard, and he sent her a message, warning her of the impending rocket. She got the message, but couldn't act on it. Ridley was keeping her on the ropes, and their brawl had dragged them two rooms away from the hangar bay, her ship, and safety.

Samus slid under Ridley, pumping her shots into him as fast as possible and leaving pockmarks of scorched flesh on his underside. A timer in her helmet notified her she had only four minutes until the explosion, but Ridley was proving too much to simply break away from the fight. She grabbed his tail and used it to climb onto his neck, where she attempted another overblast, her hand clamped firmly around his tail to prevent any unwanted manoeuvres. The shot hit the base of his skull, dazing him, allowing her a second burst of shots into his eye. A wing hit her in the face, knocking her off aim, and his jaws clamped around her upper body, but she cut through his other cheek and made him eat her shots. She grabbed his tongue and pulled as hard as possible and firing all the time. Only a minute left. She pulled out of his mouth and took another tooth with her. She used this as a close-quarters weapon to throw down his throat. While he choked on his own tooth, Samus tried to run. Too late. The missile impacted with the reactor core, throwing a shockwave out that hit both of the living beings, hurling them through the wall and into the hangar bay. Samus reached out, and managed to grab the edge of her ship, pulling herself into it as the automatic procedures kicked in, hurtling away from the explosion. Samus breathed a sigh of relief, but then she saw Ridley clinging to the outside, hands wrapped around the protrusions at the front of her ship.

The ship she was using was her one from the Phaze incident, and Ridley had the misfortune of grabbing onto the ship missiles. He screamed as they were fired into the belly of the dying Siracius, and he too was lost to the inferno.

Samus turned the ship around, setting a course for the frigate Vol Paragon.


End file.
